


Matchmaker

by Caesia390



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:34:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22827232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caesia390/pseuds/Caesia390
Summary: Originally written for an hp100 challenge, a fairytale in 8 drabbles.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Kudos: 27





	Matchmaker

THE POISONED APPLE

Riddle had invaded and corrupted their son’s mind. Lily brushed her fingers through the silk hair as black as coal, felt for breath over the parted lips red as blood. Gazed hopelessly at his cheeks pale as snow but for the delicate flush that reassured them, promised them, that he still lived.

He lived but would not wake.

Dumbledore picked up a partly-eaten apple off the floor and ‘Hmmmm’d. “I think, perhaps, containment is advisable.” His eyes held little hope.

Lily felt her heart plummet. ‘Perhaps,’ she thought, mastering her despair (he looked so peaceful), ‘Perhaps he’s dreaming of quidditch.’

...

THE GLASS COFFIN

Flitwick’s habitual cheer wilted into pity and solemnity when Dumbledore implored his help. He promised to do his best.

The result was a masterpiece: six plates of the most transparent glass enshrined the boy’s purity, defied the defilement of disease.

Flitwick mourned that he was only powerful enough to delay, not eliminate, the infection. To mark his failure, he charmed a decoration of roses onto the glass; it would spread.

He expected conflicting emotions from the parents. Sorrow and joy at the perfect, preserved beauty of their doomed child.

He didn’t expect the mother’s hysterical shriek of “It’s a coffin!”

...

THE PRINCE

The boy was delectable. Tousled hair, flushed skin, parted lips. In appearance, just sleeping.

Framing that beauty, a tangle of weeds frosted onto the glass, innocuous until one noticed one vine latch its thorns into another vine and, ever so minutely, grow.

The brambles had obscured all but his face before they called Severus in. 

Death Eater. Traitor. Riddle’s spy. But here, at this moment, trusted. He owed James a favour, loathe though either was to invoke it. It had taken desperation.

The gifted wizard peered into that sleeping mind, through layers of flesh and glass and enchantment.

He gasped.

…

SLEEPING BEAUTY

From the onset, Harry didn’t find Tom’s offers of power and immortality intriguing. When he got sick of Tom’s advances, he thought about quidditch. Usually managed to get through several imaginary games before the persistent bastard struck up again.

Then he’d switch to school subjects. He kept getting arithmancy tables wrong, which buggered up Tom’s attempts at flattery as Tom would have to stop and try very hard not to snap at Harry with corrections.

They were both of them getting tired. Harry could sense the other’s fear.

Only a matter of time before the approaching darkness silenced them both.

...

BETROTHAL

“He’s fighting,” Severus said, shocked into rooting for the boy. “Neither one is winning, but the body is weak.”

“Then strengthen it,” James insisted.

“To strengthen one is to strengthen the other. We have to destroy Riddle at the source.”

 _Severus, my boy, only you can do it._ Dumbledore’s voice in his head; Dumbledore so damn sure of his motives.

“On one condition,” Severus gritted out. He ignored the fact that the Potters had not heard his inner dialogue. “The boy, if he survives, will be bound to me.”

With the roses already kissing Harry’s lips, how could they refuse?

…

FLASHBACK

When Tom Riddle first instructed Severus to seek out the loveliest creature on earth and enable Tom to conquer him, the mirror Severus enchanted had wavered between Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter. It was Albus Dumbledore who had appeared behind him and asked, “Which would you choose?”

Severus began enumerating the advantages and disadvantages of sacrificing the child of his greatest friend or his greatest enemy.

“No, Severus, which do you feel is the _lovelier_?”

And it was for that damning choice that he risked his life in the serpent’s lair, that he proclaimed his desire for the unattainable prize.

…

CLIMACTIC BATTLE

Tom was babbling about quidditch. The power contained within those long, perfect, naked limbs, the brilliance of his master’s mind… all subverted by the wit of a child.

So Severus wasn’t very much afraid when he struck the first blow. Marble fingers around his neck, red fire in those snake-slit eyes, however, did induce some apprehension.

It was only by virtue of his total indifference to death that Severus lived long enough to see _Harry_ flash in the monster’s mind. Enough to give him hope and strength. Make Riddle falter.

They fought him from the inside and out.

They won.

…

HAPPILY EVER AFTER

“So… Wait. What?” 

Harry’s forehead still throbbed from where he had slammed it against his coffin. And now his mother was sorrowfully saying he was engaged to that man he had seen in Tom’s chamber… His father looking very much like he wanted to hex something.

It was when Severus himself showed up, bedraggled and bruised and out of breath, black eyes holding Harry’s gaze for searing seconds before dropping away, almost nervous, that Harry’s confusion dissolved.

“Ok.”

“What?!” said his parents simultaneously. Severus looked equally shocked.

“I want to marry Severus.”

Watching in his own enchanted mirror, Dumbledore twinkled.


End file.
